Stress Relief and the Brain

In the afternoon, the Brain Education Stress Relief Workshop was held by Brain Education Instructors Roxana Rybaczuk and Alina Pikula. They led the audience through simple body movements and meditations that can help you reduce stress in everyday life. They emphasized that in order to manage your stress you need to be balanced. And in order to be balanced you need to be able to focus inside yourself, rather than outside on your activities and worries. The lively instructors also took the audience through a simple massage technique they called “making pizza” that you can use to help others de-stress. These techniques are the ones they teach children participating in Brain Education programs.

Afterwards, Sung Lee, MD gave conference participants another tool for reducing their stress, and also increasing their health in general—Jang Saeng Walking. It is a simple walking method that is similar to regular walking. However, in Jang Saeng Walking, you also elongate your spine by “tucking in your tailbone”, lean one degree forward, and focus on a kidney meridian point in the bottom of your feet. The audience tried Jang Sang Walking for about three minutes. Afterwards, one man shared his arthritis felt better. Other people shared that it made them feel cooler, automatically put a smile on their face without trying, or made their legs feel fuller and more solid, and therefore more grounded. Dr. Lee told the audience that he thinks a lot of the benefit of Jang Saeng Walking comes from it making the autonomic nervous system more flexible. He explained that the autonomic nervous system is made up of two systems that balance each other—one for “fight or flight” and the other for “rest and digest”. When these systems respond quickly and to the right extent, our bodies can manage stress and illness well.